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New Project: Knife making

I have been wanting to do this for quite a while now. And I saw a thread on another forum that I visit where someone was doing it, so I said fuck it and started gathering materials.

I ordered some O1 tool steel, palm wood scales for the handles, and some nickel pins for the handles. That should all be in sometime this week.

I started getting the tools together I needed. I may end up getting a 1" or 2" belt sander in the future to speed up the process, but the first one will be done by hand with a file.

In all my research I found that the hardest part is doing the bevel. For those of you who don't know what that it, imagine a flat piece of steel, shaped like a knife. It's the same thickness everywhere. No sharp edges or anything. Well you've got to file the edge down so it comes to a sharp edge. That's the bevel. There are tons of different grinds you can do, but Ill be sticking with a standard flat grind on my first knife.

I decided to make a jig to do the grind, because I don't trust myself to freehand it. I saw a few different plans for jigs I could make, and decided to go with this one. Its not the simplest jig, but it IS pretty simple. And it makes a lot of sense whan you think about what its going to do.

Basically the file is attached to the steel rod, and it rides in the eye bolt, which you can move to whatever hole on the long piece of wood, and change the height of it, to get the angle you want. Then the knife is clamped where the other two bolts are. The one sticking out keeps the file from going past where you want it to go, and the one screwed all the way in helps keep the blade from moving.

You can also see the design I am using next to it. I found a site that has tons of designs you can download and use for free. Heres the link if anyone is interested.

I went ahead and went with it. Got a good bit done. Im working nights this week and Im off tomorrow, so Ill be messing with it a while.

I did the rough profile with an angle grinder. Then I put it in a vice and got all the edges even. Im still going to make the finder indention a good bit deeper and take some more material off of the edge side of the grip.

This is before I cleaned up all of the edges with a file.

I currently have it in my bevel grinding jig and Im working on that. Ill try and get one side done before I call it a night.

Ok Ive put A LOT of work into this since my last post. I even bought a small belt sander to speed up the process.

9/18/15
I made a simple jig for keeping the angle the same. Works great. I got the second half mostly done in about 25 minutes. Its actually thin enough on the edge so that it looks like a knife now. lol
The jig is basically a block of wood with a bolt in the bottom of it towards the back. You clamp the knife to the front of the block and adjust the bolt for the angle you want.

It is harder to get the plunge line just right using the sander though. So ill have to clean that up later.

9/20/15

Ok, so Im pretty much done with the stock removal process. So now I néed to heat treat it, and then polish it up to where I want it. I decided against the coating on it, but I will probably do that on a later one. Since this is my first one, I know it I know it wont be perfect, just like it was when I started making kydex holsters. But atleast Ill be able to make a really sick sheath for it. Haha

I ended up finishing it up on the belt sander. I ended up with more of a convex grind than a flat grind. At first it was by accident, but I liked it so I did both sides like that. I also took about 1/2" off of the handle. It feels a lot better now. I think Ive figured out grinding by hand already, so that's a good thing. I need to invest in some better belts though. Either that or just buy a ton of cheap ones.

Here you can see where I took a a little bit off of the handle.

And this is after I drilled the holes and sort of mocked up the handles and shaped one of the scales.

The middle hole ended up being in the wrong spot, but I planned on drilling a bunch of holes in it to lighten it, so that will just be one of those.

Now for the PSA. I just got back from the ER with two brand new stitches.

I was drilling holes in the handle to lighten it up. I had it clamped down, but took it off to finish cleaning up a hole. The bit Im using it pretty old and I guess its dull. It caught in the hole and the knife spun back on me and hit me hard. I thought it was bone that was showing, but they said it's a tendon when I was at the hospital. Im lucky I didn't cut through that because I would have needed surgery and been out of work for god knows how long.

Here is what the knife looks like as of now. The larger holes are all over mainly because of the dull bits I have walking away from the center punch. Ill get some better bits before I do anymore. It will all be covered by the handles though, so its no big deal,

I thought it was bone that was showing, but they said it's a tendon when I was at the hospital. Im lucky I didn't cut through that because I would have needed surgery and been out of work for god knows how long.

Yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and buy a cool looking knife for like $20 from a flea market instead of slicing up my hand and spending months trying to make one

Yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and buy a cool looking knife for like $20 from a flea market instead of slicing up my hand and spending months trying to make one

$20 wont get you much knife as far as quality goes. The cheapest knife I own that Ill actually use was like $80. Handmade knives like the one Im making go anywhere from $150-300. Even more if you get something custom. Plus Ill have something I made with my own hands (and blood) lol.

Im thinking my next knife might be a damascus steel chefs knife. Ive always wanted one but they are so fucking expensive.

Started on the handles today. I put a 40 grit belt on my 1x30 Harbor Freight belt sander and went to town. Im using black palm wood

I got it all roughly shaped. I cant take any thickness off yet because I still need to harden the blade. Then Ill be epoxying the handles on. So I need to be able to take the handle screws out until then.

I did the top of the handles by the plunge line. This part would be a pain to do after you had epoxied the handles because you would scratch up your blade.

The handles are going to look sweet when they are done. I knew palm had a stringy like grain, but it looks awesome when its sanded down.

Here they are after some sanding with 80 grit.

And here they are after a quick sand up to 1500 grit. I can get them shinier with some more sanding. We will see what I want.

I sanded the blade up to 220 before I harden it. That way I can pick up there once it comes out (hopefully) and bring it up to a nice shine. Ill probably go with a satin finish. I used an orbital sander with some 150 then some 220 grit. There are still a few scratches I need to get out from the earlier grits. And some scratches on the spine from the 40 grit. Those will be fun to take out. Also, 40 grit will remove a good bit of finger nail VERY quick it you accidentally tap it. Don't ask me how I know. lol

Heres what it looks like. The orbital sander gave it a nice satin finish. I may stick with it for the later sanding.

So if I have time to finish sanding the scratches out then I should be hardening tomorrow, and Ill epoxy the handles that night, and then Monday I might be finishing it up. Im excited, but at the same time I don't want to rush it and screw something up. Ive got so much time in this thing. so far.